Polysubstance Use Phenotypes and Healthcare Utilization among U.S. Youth with Suicide Attempts

Yunyu Xiao's pilot study aims to address alarming trends of substance-use-related suicide attempts and overdose deaths among youth. She will analyze data from Healthjump, a near-real-time electronic health records dataset, to identify and characterize polysubstance use phenotypes among youth with suicide attempt visits.

Yunyu Xiao is an assistant professor in the Division of Health Informatics in the Department of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine. Her research leverages large, longitudinal, nationally representative, complex population-based, and electronic health records datasets to understand racial/ethnic, sex, gender, socioeconomic, and other disparities in suicide and mental health, taking a life-course and multilevel perspective to explore structural, social, and individual-level factors to reduce suicide and mental health. This understanding informs social/behavioral and policy interventions to reduce disparities and improve health equity. She is leading two projects that use existing data to study social determinants of health and resilience factors relevant to mental health (broadly) and suicide (specifically) among health disparity populations. Xiao is a recipient of seed funds from the Gates Foundation, the Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Racial Justice Research Fund, Center for Social Health & Wellbeing, and an NYU University-Wide Outstanding Dissertation Award in Public Health. She received her MPhil in social work and social administration from the University of Hong Kong and her PhD in social work from New York University.